Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-06-14
THE HEALTH OF THE STATE.
Mortality for the Month of May-Favor
able Reports.

Mortality for the Month of May-Favor-
able Reports.
DR.. Gerard G. Tyrrell, Permanent Sec.
rotary of the State Board of Health, in
cludes the following remarks in his report
for the month of May:
Reports having been received from
ninety localities in different parts of the
State, we are justified in believing that nc
disease of an epidemic type is prevalent in
any part of it. The mortality for the
month of May numbers $40, in an esti-
mated population of 653, $50, a percentage
of l.3 per thousand per month-same as
that of last month, and sufficiently low to
indicate the general healthfulness of the
community.
Dysentery has prevailed to a noticeable
extent in Live Oak, Gridley, MarysviIIe,
Downcy, Biggs, Susanville knights Ferry,
st. Helena, Napa, Bakersfield and Maxwell.
The warm days preceding the cool nights.
noticed upon several occasions, were no
doubt an exciting cause of the disease.
The epidemic in Gridley and Live Oak is
calculated to strengthen the opinion, which
prevails to considerable extent. that the
| disease depends upon a specific virus,
which is transmisSible from the sick to the
well. In all cases of dysentery it would
be an act of prudence TO adopt the theory
| that the discharges are infectious. They
should, therefore, be thoroughly disin-
| fected by solution of corrosive sublimate
as soon as evacuated, and then buried i'm.
mediately. BY this means dangerous
epidemic may oe averted. The same pre-
cautions should be taken in all cases of
diarrh9a, as the bacteria, which rapidly
develop with the decomposition, NAV be-
come infective and dangerous.
Six cases of smallpox occurred during
the month in Los Angeles, which were
treated in the Smallpox Hospital. DR..
Hogan, Health Officer, reports no deaths.
Private advices inform me OF one death OF
child, four years old, on the 9th inst. In
San Francisco six cases are under treat
ment in the hospital. These, with one
exception. were imported on Chinese
steamer, and are now conyalescent. The
exceptional case voluntarily presented
himself to the authorities. He has no idea
where the disease was contracted Ad
vices from Nogales, in Arizona, declare the
disease epidemic in that town. The Gov
eminent has medical inspector there to
prevent its spread in Arizona, and all trains
leaving the Territory are inspected.
Scarlet fever is noticed in Sacramento.
Fort Bidwell, Maxwell, Shasta. Biggs'
Selma, Anderson, lone and Fresno. In the
latter town, DR.. A. L. Adams informs us
that the disease appeared quite suddenly,
and is supposed to have arisen from fam
lily who had scarlet fever some months pre-
viously, but who attended picnic without
taking any precaution to have their clothes
disinfected before doing so. The disease
attacked, simultaneously, sixteen children.
and some forty persons were taken with
sore throat forty-eight hours after the pic
mic, at which ice-cream was freely dis
pensed. 1t is possible there may be some
connection between the fever, sore TIN oat
and the ice-cream, but DIR. Adams was un-
able to trace it.
Diphtheria is not so prevalent as in the
previous few months. 1t is still in San
Francisco, and sporadic cases were noted
iii San Pedro, Eina Mills, Truckee, Jack
son, Cotton, Benicia, Vallejo, Oakland and
Maxwell. DR.. w. L. Robe states that
eight cases occurred twenty-five miles from
Maxwell, six of them in one family and
two in another. The latter were children
who were purposely exposed 80 the disease
by their mother, believing, very foclishly,
that, like measles, all children should have
It, and the sooner the better. Her unfor-
tunate ignorance was sadly rewarded by
the death OF enc child and the recovery OF
the other doubtful. II is to be hoped that
the lesson of prudence in the presence of
contagious disease thus so disiressineIy
taught, will not be lost to the community
| in which it occurred. The cases occurring
in San Pedro were all isolated by DR.. Wei
don, and by careful disinfeciion the disease
was prevented from spreading beyond its
original location
No further reports have been received of
the prevalence OF cholera in Mexico. Con-
sui Willard, at Guaymas, reports Sonora TO
be free from any contagious disease except
measles among children